Fluorescent lighting fixtures are available in a variety of shapes and sizes. One popular fixture is, in essence, a box having a width of approximately two feet and a length of approximately four feet. This box is designed to be mounted in a drop ceiling used, for example, in offices and industrial spaces. The box encloses three to four elongated tubular fluorescent bulbs according to the prior art. Applicant's co-pending U.S. patent application entitled Fluorescent Light Fixture, Ser. No. 09/048,554, filed Mar. 26, 1998 (the "'554 application" herein), describes a modified fixture enclosure box and reflector arrangement that preferably enables two conventional bulbs to be mounted in a fixture. The teachings of this patent application are expressly incorporated herein by reference. The fixture box described in the '554 application is modified to increase optical performance while reducing physical profile. Nevertheless, this box includes a conventional ballast positioned, typically, under a portion of the reflector. The ballast is an electronic component needed to convert standard AC line voltage (typically 110 or 220 VAC at 50-60 Hz) to high frequency driving current for operating fluorescent bulbs. It is usually contained in a sealed metal housing with lead wires for both feed and output current. To install and periodically replace such prior art ballasts requires the services of a licensed electrician in most instances. This is because the fixture must be partially dismantled. In such disassembly, the bulbs and reflector are first removed to reveal the ballast. Sometimes the entire fixture must be lowered from the ceiling when the ballast is located outside the box itself. Once the ballast unit is accessed, it is unscrewed from the sheet metal box and the wires are carefully disconnected from the fixture's power feeds and from the leads that connect the mounting brackets to each fluorescent light bulb. Clearly this process is time consuming and costly.
In addition, most connecting brackets are individually mounted to the inside end wall of the fixture box. Their position is carefully preset, and not subject to substantially variability. There may be various obstructions along the end walls of the box that limit movement of the brackets to other locations. This limits the ability to optimize bulb placement or increase or decrease the number of bulbs in a given fixture. Since energy conservation is an increasing concern, such modification of existing fixtures is often highly desirable.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a fluorescent bulb bracket and ballast system that allows easy connection and disconnection of the ballast with respect to the light fixture. Such connection and disconnection should not require substantial dismantling of the light fixture. In addition, it is desirable that the light fixture bulb mounting/connecting brackets allow versatile adjustment and that the a single ballast in the system be usable to drive a group in a of ganged fixtures.